চাঁদপাল ঘাট, কলকাতা, c১৮১৪
This view of riverside depicted by James Baillie Fraser with bathers and ferry near Chandpal Ghat, the bussiest ferry ghat of Calcutta for a long time. Existence of Chandpal Ghat as the southernmost Ghat on Hooghly is easily discernable in the ‘Plan of Fort William and part of the city of Calcutta’ surveyed in 1753. With the landing of Sir Philip Francis and his fellow Councillors of the Supreme Council for India under East India Company at Chandpal Ghat in 1774, it became a class apart from the other Ghats. Incidentally, this Ghat took its name not from an elite Indian, but from an obscure and forgotten native shopkeeper Chandranath Pal or Chand Pal who used to sell his petty merchandise beside the Ghat. Until the railway was opened the principal landing place was customarily the well-known Chandpal Ghat. Lord Cornwallis was the first Governor General who landed at this Ghat on 12th September 1786. Chandpal Ghat became the gateway not only of Calcutta but also of British India for a long time to come. Calcutta was then fast becoming the first City of Asia. Expansion in every sphere of it was then its hallmark, Ghats included. See more
This is plate one from James Baillie Fraser’s ‘Views of Calcutta and its Environs’. Fraser (1783-1856)
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THE INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM JONES
(II)
“THE JUSTINIAN OF INDIA”
Sir William Jones resided in India from 1783 to 1794, as a judge of the Bengal Supreme Court. His work on India and the Orient changed the image of India in European eyes forever. However, the Western codes applied by Jones to the realities of India were not always successful. This is clear from his work on comparative mythology and Indian music. In addition, dazzled by the cultural treasures of Ancient India he tended to ignore eighteenth-century India. Even his interpretation and rewriting of Indian law was based on ancient Brahminical law. The result was a mummification of the country, which was to have profound consequences both internally, on India’s legal systems and social structure, and externally, in the way India was perceived by the West as a country lost in time.
Juge à la Cour suprême du Bengale, Sir William Jones a résidé en Inde de 1783 à 1794. Ses écrits ont déterminé un changement radical du regard porté sur l’Inde à l’époque. Toutefois, l’usage de la méthodologie euro-péenne a parfois gêné son approche de la culture, notamment dans ses travaux sur la mythologie comparative et la musique indienne. En outre, ébloui par l’Inde ancienne, il a fait l’impasse sur l’Inde du XVIII siècle. Sa relecture des lois hindoues, dans un nouveau code, à partir des lois anciennes brahmaniques, ignorait en fait l’histoire écoulée depuis l’apogée de l’empire hindou jusqu’à lui. Il en est résulté une momification culturelle qui a eu de grandes conséquences, à la fois en Inde, sur le système juridique et la structure sociale, mais aussi sur le regard porté sur elle de l’extérieur: une civilisation hors du temps.
ir William Jones stepped off the frigate The Crocodile at publications of his intellectual adventures were to change the image of India in European eyes forever. Prior to Jones, the space occupied by India in the European imagination the Imago Mundi, as it were,
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RSÉAA XVII-XVIII 67 (2010)
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I am absolutely amazed to see the level of infrastructure development as far back as 1890. but I am researching for details of daily life in the City of Calcutta in that decade with special reference to the location of missionary groupings.
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